Sam Brown's Story on The Fifth Estate

On February 23, 2009, 24-year-old Sam Brown of British Columbia was arrested by U.S. authorities in Washington State as he landed a helicopter he had piloted across the border. Sam's crime: he was attempting to smuggle almost 200 kilograms of marijuana,"B.C. Bud[HTML_REMOVED]#8221;. Only a few days after his arrest, Sam hanged himself in his jail cell. In Over the Edge, Linden MacIntyre takes us into the world of drug smuggling in B.C. and the role in it of young people like Sam Brown.

Sam was an extreme sports enthusiast, who thrived on the adrenaline of risk taking. He grew up in the B.C. interior, living in Nelson, where the flourishing mountain biking scene offered him new challenges. Rugged and picturesque, Nelson is a hotbed for the young and unconventional, a magnet for extreme sports enthusiasts[HTML_REMOVED]#8212;and a centre for the lucrative, underground marijuana industry.

The homegrown pot, [HTML_REMOVED]#8220;B.C. Bud[HTML_REMOVED]#8221;, pours billions of illegal dollars into local economies in B.C. Huge demand for the drug has allowed Nelson to ride out normal economic swings. But [HTML_REMOVED]#8220;B.C. Bud[HTML_REMOVED]#8221; also fuels a multi-billion dollar criminal enterprise on B.C.[HTML_REMOVED]#8217;s lower mainland and the United States, sustained largely by a core group of thrill-seekers like Sam[HTML_REMOVED]#8212;young people who smuggle drugs for the sheer high of the risk and their addiction to the money.

In Over the Edge, the fifth estate reconstructs Sam[HTML_REMOVED]#8217;s final smuggling mission. Linden MacIntyre speaks with a former smuggler who recruited Sam into that world. Viewers will also hear from his sisters and father, still grappling with the circumstances of his arrest and his death, as well as Sam[HTML_REMOVED]#8217;s American lawyers, some of the last people to speak with him before he took his life.

toward the end they made a comment about young adventurous people having their lives ruined by the US war on drugs and minimum sentencing. I didn't expect that, nor do I really agree with it.

I don't agree with the ruining adventurous young peoples lives because you
know what you're getting into when you cross that line. My father spent a lot of my/his
life in prison as I was growing up. Every time I thought about getting into that
kind of business he always said "If you can't do the time don't do the crime". I
thought it was just him repeating Baretta, but it stuck with me, and it is the full
truth.

On the other hand, the mentality of the US law enforcement agencies and the US
government as a whole is archaic and rooted in myth and hidden agendas.

While Sam was a really good bike rider, and probably a good 'bro', he knew what
he was doing. It's a shame he did what he did, so much promise thrown away.

Considering this was from a major network - for Canada at least - I thought they did a very good job. (I don't have the same confidence in Jason Priestley.)

I would have liked to have known more though.

How many times and for how long was Sam questioned after he was taken into custody?
Were those interrogations taped? I'd bet he wasn't treated very well by the DEA.
What about the questionable record of the Spokane jail?
Why wasn't Sam allowed to make a phone call?